Go learn your lesson

If
America is the Invisible University, Rochester is surely one of the
institution's biggest colleges. Look hard enough and you can probably find a
course in nearly any imaginable subject, night or day. Expand your definition
of "informal education," and the learning opportunities in this town are
limitless.

To find a course to suit your
interest, check the usual venues --- colleges and universities, art and music
schools, Writers & Books, BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational
Services), town rec and community centers, museums, and even local government
departments. Then go further and look into the smaller institutions like
libraries, historical and scientific societies, cultural centers, and religious
organizations. Rochester InfoCourses is a unique smorgasbord of courses held
throughout the county. Delve deeper still: Many specialty shops sometimes offer
courses; even the two big supermarket chains have cooking classes on occasion.

If your interest isn't sated by the
course catalogs in your mailbox, ask a related local business or trade union
for inspiration.

Following are a few suggestions to
get you started.

Portable
landscapes

The
ancient Egyptians and Indians potted decorative and medicinal plants for easy
transport. The Han-Dynasty Chinese composed miniature landscapes as a sacred
art. The Japanese elite brought a refinement and natural character to their
arrangements. Now you can carry on 4,000 years of "tray planting" right here in
Rochester. Known today by its Japanese name, bonsai is a horticultural art that shapes potted dwarf trees into
their most beautiful forms.

Rochester resident William
Valavanis, who has practiced the art for 40 years and taught around the world
for 30, calls bonsai specimens the "pampered pets" of the plant world. The
fulltime bonsai artist and educator offers an intro course this fall, specially
designed for those with no previous experience. Beginners will go home with a
good basic grasp of the art, and four nice potted dwarf trees. How long do the
plants live? "Until you kill 'em," Valavanis says.

Introductory
bonsai course with William Valavanis, September 16 to October 12. Classes
are held from 7 to 10 p.m. Monday and Wednesday, and 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Saturday, at The International Bonsai Arboretum, 1070 Martin Road, West
Henrietta. Students choose any four classes from the schedule. Fee: $70. Info:
334-2595 or www.internationalbonsai.com.

The
Zen of (blind) archery

Sharon
Pagel has two graphics on her business card: an empty wheelchair and an archery
bow. They read left to right across the card, a sort of life story. Eight years
ago, waking up after back surgery, Pagel was blind, the result of inadequate
oxygen to her brain during the operation. She'd grown up in a hunting family
and had bow-hunted for two years before losing her eyesight. "I sat around and
felt sorry for myself for a couple of months," she says, until her husband
coaxed her back onto the range. Within eight months, she'd bagged a deer.

An archery teacher before the
surgery, Pagel continues to instruct Cub and Boy Scouts every summer, and runs
archery programs throughout the region for youth and physically challenged. She
also coaches women who want to get into archery for sport or hunting. Her
message for beginners: "Forget about hitting the target." What matters is that
you shoot.

Bow-woman
Sharon Pagel, teacher and speaker. Info: 554-3876.

Sweat
it

Carmen
Ramos just came back to Rochester from his third sundance with the Lakota in
South Dakota. By invitation only, participants spend four days without food or
water, dancing around the Tree of Life and chanting together in a sweat lodge.
On the last day, they are suspended from the tree, attached by buffalo bones
skewered through their chests. The only way down is to rip themselves free.

While Ramos dislikes labels ---
"Once you call me a teacher of something, I'll be stuck at that point in my
learning," he says --- he hails from a long line of healers in Puerto Rico,
dating to pre-Columbian times. Let's just say that he practices and teaches a
wide array of healing arts, from Tai Chi Chuan for people with a range of
disabilities, to alternative therapies for nursing-home and hospice and prison
residents, to drumming circles, to Amazonian plant medicine. He's an
alternative medicine specialist at the Jewish Home of Rochester, one of the
first nursing homes in the country to employ a holistic healer. Oh yeah, and
there's the monthly sweat lodge in Middlesex. Participants spend two hours in a
small willow-branch lodge with red-hot stones, built to symbolize the womb of
Mother Earth. They pray, chant, and sing, and emerge purified and, perhaps,
reborn.

Sweat lodge
with Carmen Ramos. Contact the Jewish Home of Rochester, 427-7760 x177.

Calling
all angels

As
a child growing up near Utica, Fran Carns used to imagine climbing onto God's
lap or flying around with angels. "They were safe places," she says, "full of
unconditional love." She was always sure she wanted to be a healer, but didn't
know she had the power.

After working as a nurse and Red
Cross instructor, Carns, now 44, opened Angels at Work, a counseling service
that tackles anxiety, depression, and all manner of fear and phobia. For the
last 10 years, she's led an ongoing Tuesday-night meditation class, a free-form
fusion of discussion, guided visualization, and silence. Carns' goal is to
guide participants toward accepting their entire selves and treating themselves
well. "I don't teach anything," she says, "because there's no right or wrong
way to meditate. I just awaken what people already know."

Angels at Work
meditation,
7 to 9:30 p.m. every Tuesday, 4210 Ridge Road West. Fee: $10 suggested
donation, but no one will be turned away. Canned goods suitable for food-pantry
donation also acceptable. Info: 723-9350.

Chivalry
lives

You
can touch another life in any number of ways. For Jim Piotter, teaching the
medieval skills of jousting and swordsmanship works just fine. "You have to
have a little fire in what you do," he says. "I see a lot of people who have
forgotten how." The 51-year-old competes in international full-contact jousting
tournaments, on horseback and in an 80-plus-pound full suit of armor. "It's not
creative knitting," he says. Piotter runs an environmental consulting company
to pay his chain-mail and lance bills, and offers private and semi-private
lessons in all aspects of his sports --- including horse training and
"everything from the saber to the broadsword."

Full-contact, full-armored jousting
is not the most popular sport in the world, but is certainly among the most
demanding. There are 1,500 competitors worldwide, and 15 in the US. Piotter can
probably blame his ancestors for this unusual pursuit: Knights perch on the
branches of his family tree, as does a Prussian prince.

Potent
plants

Community
herbalist and educator Angela Tiberio packs a lot into her family's seven-acre
organic herb farm: gardens, an herbal apothecary, and a learning center. Aside
from concocting all her own herbal stuff --- edibles, potables, slatherables
--- she leads herb walks and classes on the farm. To finish out the year,
Tiberio is offering a four-lecture series on various aspects of the herbalist's
craft. All lectures are from 6:30 to 8 p.m. September 18: Fall Tonics and Foods
to Boost Immunity. October 9: Healthy Herbal Teas to Please. November 6: Don't
Worry, Be Happy. December 4: Wintertime Herbal Remedies.

Speaking
in tongues

What
do you do if you want to pop the question to someone from another country?
Ex-Marine Mike Hilton decided to do right by his Mexican girlfriend, so he
enlisted a teacher at Language Intelligence, Ltd. to help him. The company
specializes in language and cross-cultural training for business travelers and
others who want to master the ways of another country. "We get more and more
calls from parents who want their kids to learn a language at an earlier age,
or whose kids' schools don't offer language programs," says Irene White,
company president.

White and her staff custom-designed
a program for Hilton --- as they do for all their clients, from the Japan-bound
businessperson to the group of friends planning a bike trip through France. All
instructors are native speakers or fluent speakers who can work with all ages.
Hilton's teacher, who lived in Mexico for 10 years, taught him how to properly
address his girlfriend's family and how to pop the question. (The answer was sí.) Hilton will continue studying until
the 2003 wedding in his fiancée's hometown cathedral, to perfect his vows and
learn the wedding Mass in Spanish. "By then," he says, "I'll be fluent."

Older
and wired

Rose
Masucci used to be afraid of mice. Not the furry kind, but the type bound to a
computer. The now 77-year-old was getting flak from her friends in Florida and
her relatives around the country, who wanted to stay in touch via e-mail. Two
years ago, tired of the nagging, she signed up for a course at SeniorNet
Learning Center, a local branch of the international organization, housed at
the JCC. Within a month, Masucci had gone from not knowing where the on-off button
was to buying her own computer. She's about to enroll in her sixth course, and
maintains a healthy e-mail connection with all the afore-mentioned naggers.

The not-for-profit SeniorNet grew
out of a 1986 research project funded by the Markle Foundation to determine
whether computers and telecommunications could enhance the lives of older
adults. The result: a worldwide network of over 220 learning centers, and an
online community of discussion groups and courses. The two-year-old Rochester
center is staffed exclusively by older volunteers, many of them retired
professional techies from big local companies. To join, seniors --- people aged
50 and up --- pay an annual tax-deductible membership fee of $40 to the
national organization. They can then enroll in local SeniorNet classes and use
open-lab sessions for extra help and practice. Most courses run for eight
weeks; the maximum class size is 10.

School without bills

Single
mom Angela Burns was working in a local daycare center, wondering how she could
make enough money to raise her son, when she heard about the Rochester
Educational Opportunity Center. She'd always wanted to work in a physician's
office, so she enrolled in REOC 's entry-level health-clerk program. As soon as
Burns completed the 10-week course in May, she was snapped up by Long Pond
Pediatrics. Now she earns enough to start saving for her son's college
education and to take her first real vacation.

OK, it's a pretty normal
pull-yourself-up story, but there's more: All of REOC's courses, from a variety
of medical-support skills to computer training to machining, are completely
tuition-free. The center, funded by the state through the SUNY Center for
Academic and Workforce Development and supported by SUNY Brockport, also offers
free GED and college-prep courses, as well as job-placement services for its
graduates, gratis. Students only pay
for classroom materials, such as books and uniforms.

Horse
power

Cathy
Hallett sees kids with physical disabilities sit up straight and kids with ADD
pay close attention as soon as they get on her horses. Hallett is certified in
hippotherapy, a treatment that uses contact with a horse's movement to improve
neurological function, sensory processing, and physical activity. Her
therapeutic riding program serves a wide range of kids and adults, from the
ambulatory to people in wheelchairs. "The natural motion and warmth of the
horse's body works the rider's muscles more than traditional physical therapy
exercises," she says.

Many of Hallett's able-bodied
students are teenage girls. With all the negative, critical messages girls get
from society, she says, "girls are drawn to horses because of the empowering
aspect of riding. It gives you power to know you're on something so big, and
that you have to build mutual trust." The majority of girls who start riding
before their teens will stick with it, she says, and will have a safe and
constructive activity and peer group during their tough adolescent years.